Student’s Places

How we live in IKEA’s times

They’re all so different, these places of ours.
Even in the time of IKEA.

My aim with Student’s Places was to document places where Italian students spend their time; where they live, sleep, eat breakfast, make love and sometimes study as a reflex of their inner places. It became a great excuse to meet new people and try to see with different eyes everyday places and to capture portraits of the inhabitants. In Italy we have almost no university facilities such as dormitories, so students often co-house and share expenses and experiences.

Among these pictures, there is one from my freshman year room. It was taken with a cell phone camera, just to say “I’m fine” to my parents and friends at home – a thousand of miles away. I can hardly recognise traces of me in this photo, whilst I find signs everywhere: each image pinned in the wall; the book I was reading; a religious icon above my desire to believe.

I remember the eyes I used whilst pretending to see wood nodes interspersed in the middle of roofs old crossbeams.
I thought of the houses, rooms and places (even the public ones) we all live in, and how they tell more about us more than our facebook pages ever could. Even more than we may be able to tell if asked.

Notwithstanding this, we’re ready to move, for months or forever, to another place called home. Sometimes we are so grateful we have a place to hide in, just the time to rest, to fix us or to love; others we just do not care about.